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i%0.   1.  I 

Having  been  assigned  to  tlie  charge  of  the  defense  of  that  part  of 
the  Valley  of  the  Mississippi,  which  is  embraced  within  the  boundaries 
of  Department  No.  2,  I  liereby  assume  command.  All  officers  on  duty 
within  the  limits  of  said  Department  will  report  accordingly. 

In  assuming  this  very  grave  res})onsibility  the  General  in  command 
is  constrained  to  declare  his  deep  and  long  settled  conviction  that  the 
war  in  which  we  are  engaged,  is  one  not  warranted  by  reason  or  any 
necessity,  political  or  social,  of  our  existing  condition,  but  that  it  is 
indefensible  and  of  unparalelled  atrocity.  We  have  protested,  and  do 
protest,  that  all  we  desire  is  to  be  let  alone,  to  repose  in  quietness 
under  our  own  vine  and  our  own  fig  tree.  We  have  souglit  and  only 
sought,  the  undisturbed  enjoyment  of  the  inherent  and  tlie  indefeasible 
right  of  self-government— a  riglit  which  freemen  can  never  relinquish 
and  which  none  but  tyrants  could  ever  seek  to  wrest  from  us.  Those 
with  whom  we  have  been  lately  associated  in  the  bonds  of  a  pretended 
fraternal  regard  have  wished  and  endeavored  to  deprive  us  of  this,  our 
great  birthright  as  American  freemen.  Nor  is  this  all :  they  have 
sought  to  deprive  us  of  this  inestimable  right  by  a  merciless  war,  which 
can  attain  no  other  possible  end  than  the  luin  of  fortunes  and  the 
destruction  of  lives,  for  the  subjugation  of  Christian  freemen  is  out  of 
the  question. 

A  war  which  has  tluis  no  motive  except  lust  or  hate,  and  no  object 
except  ruin  and  devastation,  under  the  shallow  pretense  of  the  restora- 
tion of  the  Union,  is  surely  a  war  against  heaven  as  well  as  a  war 
against  earth.  Of  all  the  absurdities  ever  enacted,  of  all  tJie  hypocri- 
cies  ever  practiced,  an  attempt  to  restore  a  union  of  minds,  and  hearts, 
and  wills,  like  that  which  once  existed  in  North  America,  by  the  rav- 
ages of  fire  and  sword,  are  assuredly  among  the  most  prodigous.     As 


sure  as  there  is  a  righteous  Ruler  of  the  Universe,  such  a  war  must,  end 
in  disaster  to  those  by  •wliom  it  was  inaugurated,  and  by  whom  it  is 
now  prosecuted  with  circumstance?  ofbarbarity  wliich  it  was  fondly  be- 
lieved would  never  more  disgrace  the  annals  of  a  civilized  people. 
Numbers  may  be  against  us.  but  the  battle  is  not  always  to  the  strong. 
Justice  Avill  criumph,  and  au  earnest  of  this  triumph  is  Jilrejidy  beheld 
in  the  mighty  uprising  of  the  whole  Southern  heart.  Almost  as  one 
Tuan  this  [,Teat  section  comes  to  the  rescue,  resolved  to  perish  rather 
than  yield  to  the  oppressor,  who,  in  the  name  of  Freedom,  yet  under 
the  primf:  inspiration  of  an  infidel  horde,  seek  to  reduce  eight  millions 
of  freem<m  to  abject  bondage  and  subjugation.  All  ages  and  condi- 
tions a^'e  united  in  one  grand  and  holy  purpose  of  rolling  back  the 
desolating  tides  of  invasion,  and  of  restoring  to  the  people  of  the  South 
that  peace,  independence  and  right  of  self-government,  to  which  they 
are  by  nature  and  nature's  God  as  justly  entitled  as  those  who  seek 
l-hus  ruthlessly  to  enslave  them. 

The  General  in  command,  having  the  strongest  confidence  in  the  in- 
telligence and  firmness  of  purpose  of  those  belonging  to  his  depart- 
ment, enjoins  upon  them  the  maintenance  of  a  calm,  patient,  persistant 
and  undaunted  determination  to  resist  the  invasion  at  all  hazards  and 
to  the  last  extremity.  It  comes,  bringing  with  it  a  contempt  for  Con- 
stitutional liberty,  and  the  witjiering  influence  of  the  infidelity  of 
New  England  and  Germany  combined.  Its  success  would  deprive  us 
of  a  future.  The  best  men  among  our  invaders  opposed  the  course 
they  are  pursuing  at  the  first,  but  they  have  been  overborne  or  swept 
into  the  wake  of  the  prevailing  current,  and  now,  under  the  promptings 
of  their  fears  or  the  delusion  of  some  idolatrous  reverence  supposed 
to  be  due  to  a  favorite  symbol,  are  as  active  as  any  in  instigating  this 
unnatural,  unchristian  and  cruel  war. 

Our  protests.  Avhich  we  here  solemnly  repeat  in  the  face  of  the  civil- 
ized world,  have  been  hitherto  unheeded,  and  we  are  left  alone  under 
God,  to  the  resources  of  our  own  minds  and  our  own  hearts — to  the  re- 
sources of  our  manhood.  Upon  them,  knowing  as  he  does  those  whom 
he  addresses  as  well  a^  those  with  whom  you  are  co-operating  through- 
out the  South,  the  General  in  command  feels  he  may  rely  with  un- 
wavering confidence.  Let  eyery  man,  then,  throughout  the  land  arm 
himself  in  the  most  effective  manner  and  hold  himself  in  readiness  to 
support  the  combined  resistance.  A  cause  which  has  for  its  object 
nothing  less  than  the  security  of  civil  liberty  and  the  preservation  of 
the  purity  of  religious  truth,  is  the  cause  of  heaven,  and  may  well  chal- 
lenge the  homage  and  Hervice  i-f  ihc  patriot  iind  the  Christian.  Tu  God 
ie  our  tnist. 

^  '  Major-General  P.  A.  C.  S.  Commanding. 


HoUinger  Corp. 
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